My wild laughter echoes around us, bouncing off the high ceiling and skittering out over the water to the island’s heart. Because Dawson’s told me all I need to know in his desperation.
If anchoring myself to Letum truly brought Niko’s death, he wouldn’t have tried to stop me. He’d have waited until the transfer was already complete to reveal himself and take control.
“You lose, Dawson,” I gasp. “Just like your dead king.”
He snarls, inches from my face and squeezes tighter, but it’s too late.
Because my faith in Niko has been reinforced by fire and steel, but more importantly, so has the faith in myself. That I’m strong enough to stay true to the things that matter, through pain and fear. That I can trust myself and my heart.
It’s enough to shatter through the ice holding my magic hostage. The jagged pieces rain through me, slicing at my lungs, my bones, but instead of running from it, I revel in the agony. I use it to ground my power deep within myself, the soft girl I once was, and the girl I am now. Together, they dive into my shimmering pool of magic. And from it, I paint in a new future.
One where Letum is alive and flourishing. Where I am its queen, protector and lover of the island, and all who visit in their dreams.
With Niko by my side.
“I can’t wait to watch every time you remember, Willa,” Dawson breathes above me, his voice drifting further and further away as I grab hold of the paintbrush in my mind. “When eternity sprawls out before you, a never-ending path of monotony and loneliness.”
Another slash of my brush, and the picture becomes clearer. I hold on tight, even as Dawson digs the tip of a blade into the skin above my heart.
“Remember how hard you fought for this.”
His words dissolve as my eyes fly open, and my magic thrusts my dreams out of me and into reality. Another blink, and I’ve slipped from Dawson’s grasp, plunged from midair into the center of the lake. Blood leaks freely from the cut on my palm, and the small, puckered wound above my heart, courtesy of Dawson’s blade. It threads through the icy water, the crimson spiraling to create a morbidly beautiful painting in the dark depths.
My breath is stolen by the cold, but for there is no panic, no frantic fighting. For just as my blood feeds into the water, I amalso fed. The island’s magic plunges straight into my pool of power, but it does not flail there. It grows and grows, expanding to consume every bit of my body. I am all spectral light, all unimaginable color. It laces through the beats of my heart, digs into the tissue of my lungs. The island threads through my veins and imbues my bones, burying itself into my flesh, and sparking over my skin.
Once, I was an empty shell, but now I am full—of every feeling, every dream, every choice.
And when I rise to the surface, propelled by the light in me and around me, I understand the island isn’t made of simply imagination: it is the magic of a child’s laugh, the hope of a mother’s dreams. It is the shadows of a father’s nightmare, and the sharp edge of a sister’s terror.
The island was borne of endless possibility—of infinite potential sprawling into eternity.
Potential, that is now entirely mine.
Chapter forty-three
Rivulets of water stream from my clothes, and my hair is plastered into sodden ropes down my back, as I climb up out of the lake and onto the shore of the skull island. I swipe at my eyes in an attempt to see to the shoreline where I left Dawson. From this distance, it’s impossible to make out any details, but there’s no sign of movement.
He probably ran the moment I dove into the lake, terrified of the power I would wield when I emerged. And rightfully so. It sings beneath my skin like a siren’s song. Every bit of life lighting up the cavern of my chest like a signal fire, even as Dawson’s final words echo in my mind.
I want you to remember how hard you fought for this.
He’d meant it as a warning—a strike against my insecurities. But the truth is, I won’t ever forget. Not because I can’t, but because I don’twantto.
It’s taken two hundred and twenty-seven years of searching, but I finally understand where I’m supposed to be. In my search for power, I found so much more. Love. Friendship.
Home.
I used to think home was a stagnation and a vulnerability. But the roots of a home don’t grow in the soil. They begin where all the most precious things do: the deepest corners of a heart, the protected realm of magic and dreams. Home imbues us with strength and gives us a reason to fight. It is the path leading back to ourselves, a steady signal light in the dark chaos of the world.
Home is an anchor, and only an anchor can provide true freedom. The freedom to jump, to fall, to fly wherever I choose, and never be drawn too far by the winds of the universe.
I may be the island’s anchor, but Niko—Niko is mine.
Closing my eyes, I reach for my magic. It no longer shimmers in a small pool behind my heart, but threads through every part of me, lighting up the shadows with luminescent dreams. I don’t have to concentrate, nor grit my teeth to keep it from slipping—it’s there, simmering at the surface of my skin, waiting for my call.
I think of my home and feel the violent tug in my chest. The air pulls tight around me, and the world blurs in a riot of color.
And then I’m kneeling in the entrance hall of the Lunaedon, my waterlogged clothes dripping small puddles onto the ebony marble. Shattered glass litters the floor, and dread curdles in the pit of my stomach, as I realize the broken windows haven’t repaired themselves. The only sign of life is the shining pool of black blood, where Niko had lain when I left.
